To Live is to Die

Yesterday I described a very intense death dream! I would like to delve into something that seems to be the scariest fear of man. The fear of death.

First would we agree the fear of death is not death? The ideas of death are not the actual death. The thoughts about death are not death. Can we investigate – out of the field of thought – the fact of death? May we look at this issue without preconceived ideas, stereotypes, traditional ideas etc?

So what exactly is death? Death is the end of the body. The material body isn’t able to work anymore and it’s about time for it to cease to exist. We don’t know anything else about death, do we? We believe in reincarnation, heaven and hell etc but all these are just a few ideas, a few beliefs. It’s weird why these beliefs play such a major role in our life. But let’s stick to the facts.. all we know is that the body dies, all the material part dies, this is an inevitable fact, isn’t it? And why is this scary?

I would doubt we are afraid of the physical pain we are going to experience before death. The fear of death lies to something much deeper. Isn’t it scary because we are afraid of the loss of our happy memories, of our desires, of our experiences, of all the things we’ve conquered psychologically (i am a respectable member of this society, my parents were proud for me, my friends believe i am a noble man etc). We are also attached to people, habits, to a sense of safety and all these are going to end.. the sense of the known ends and we can’t handle it. The whole psychological existence will cease, our whole consciousness, our psychological identity will end. This is inevitable.. why? because all these mentioned in the previous lines (memories, habits, sense of safety, images of what i am, what other people are etc) are stored in the mechanical part of the brain encoded in the form of electric signals in electrical synapses. And while the brain dies, all these end, die. And then what is left? Nothing! Not a thing. Why is this scary? Why the unknown is scary?

And what would happen if we were dying psychologically every single day, if we were dying everyday to our memories, to our desires, to our ambitions, to our attachments? If we were born anew every single day, fresh, new, with no expectations, no hopes, with no sense of being something specific (good, bad, smart, kind, patient etc)? What would happen then? Please think of it on your own. If our identity was dying everyday, then everyday a new man would be born, a man with no burden of desires, hopes and expectations to weigh him, a new man, an innocent man that wouldn’t be afraid of losing anything because nothing would be left to lose. Then the fear of death inevitably dies. And then we are able to live Now, because there are no fears, no thoughts, no expectations, no hopes.. nothing of time, nothing of the future or the past, there is only Now.. you just live, motivelessly! To live is to die. Every single day!

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Jorge Kapa

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